Next of Kin
by Airgead
Summary: Set immediately post-10.6. Proof that family comes in many forms, even for the formidable Harry Pearce. Features a goodly dose of Harry and Malcolm, plus a few others. This is a multi-chapter fic, but will be short-ish, unlike my main obsession, Hook, Line & Sinker. Do feel free to leave a review! M for later chapters. BBC/Kudos own what's theirs, the rest is my own work.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: A small departure from **_**Hook, Line and Sinker**_**, this popped into my head while I was scrubbing the potatoes tonight, and simply would not leave me alone. Warning: it's sad. And there will be more.**

_It's the silence that nearly undoes her_, she decides. The terrible, unnerving silence as he stands next to Ruth's body, still holding her hand, as she lies on a metal gurney in the morgue. Erin checks her phone for the fiftieth time in the last fifteen minutes. _Come on, Dimitri, how long does it take to get hold of two personnel files? _she wonders, supremely uncomfortable that she is witnessing the legendary Sir Harry Pearce going to pieces. Silently.

ooooo

It's the handwriting that nearly breaks him. Funny, that, when he considers everything else he's endured: and yet the familiar scrawl, all loops and blurred vowels, typical of someone who spends – _spent_ – her life writing at a furious pace, at briefings, during teleconferences, in cars on her way to meetings, nearly brings him to tears, even though he had not known her as well as some of the other members of Section D. _She must have done it just before she left the Grid for Towers' office,_ he deduces, looking at the bright red ink. _Bright as…no, don't think about that, not now… _On the Next of Kin form in her file, Ruth has written Harry's name and private mobile number, placing them above her mother's contact details; and in Harry's own file, she has done the same, adding her name and all her phone numbers at the top of what looks like a brand new form. Dimitri frowns and looks closer: there are no other contact details for his Department Head. No family members, no relatives. He notices a tiny asterisk after Ruth's name, and looks down the paper to see what the little mark is referring to. Beneath the official footer, Ruth has added a couple of lines in one of her favourite ciphers, based on the Greek alphabet: he puzzles it out, then pulls out his mobile phone and dials.

Erin answers immediately, and in spite of everything, Dimitri smiles, imagining her holding the phone in her hand, staring at it, willing it to ring. Once he has told her everything, he waits for orders, but Erin merely thanks him and tells him to clock off; she will take care of the rest. "Do you need me to come down to St Thomas' and wait with you?" he offers, and there is a pause on the line, as he holds his breath. "If you want," she replies, after what feels like an eternity. He _wants_, all right, and is heading for the pods even as she ends the call, while the personnel files lie forgotten on Harry's desk.

ooooo

It's the call he never, ever wants to get, the one that brings it all back to him, and for a moment he toys with the idea of ignoring it, or better yet, flinging the insistently buzzing unit far away, and into the inky blue water; but he has never been one to shirk his duty, and so he answers it with his heart in his mouth. "Harry?" It is not Harry; and at first, relief washes over him, until his brain begins to make sense of what his ears are telling him. The clipped female voice on the other end says, "You're down as next of kin, and there's been… been an incident." He shivers, although the sudden icy feeling he is experiencing has nothing to do with the late Autumn evening, and asks hesitantly, "Are you sure I'm listed as next of kin? Not his daughter, or…" The clipped voice cuts in, "Sorry. All I know is, there's a new form in his file, and you're the _second_ name on it. So, will you come? Now?" And all of his worst fears coalesce sickeningly, knotting his gut as the horrible truth seeps through his handset: he was too long in the Service to misunderstand her thinly veiled meaning. _No, oh no. Not her. Not Ruth… I should have thrown the damn phone away, while I still had the chance. Oh, Harry. My God. Not Ruth, not after everything else…_ his chest starts to feel too tight and too heavy, and he begins to wheeze as he gropes through his pockets for his inhaler.

Standing outside the morgue of St Thomas', Erin listens in dismay as the soft voice, cultured (_Oxbridge_, she guesses) and yet with the slightest hint of a Welsh lilt, shakily informs her that its owner is currently on the island of Anglesey, doing some research at the Tai Cochion Roman archaeological excavations near Brynsiencyn; he can't possibly envisage being in London before the next morning. Erin looks at the silent, still figure of her boss, holding a dead woman's hand and stroking her hair back from her face, over and over again, and makes a decision that is so far above her pay grade it's not funny. _But then nor is any of this, _she tells herself, as out loud she says, "Look, how soon can you be at RAF Valley?"

ooooo

_It's not our usual sort of mission, and it's not our usual sort of passenger, either_, the tall young pilot thinks as he and his crew scramble to the big yellow Search and Rescue Sea King helicopter, twenty minutes later; jogging alongside them, and very out of breath, is a seemingly unremarkable middle-aged man in corduroys, a tweed cap and a well-worn Barbour jacket. _If anything,_ the pilot thinks as he goes through his pre-flight checks and the huge rotor begins to _whap whap whap_, getting up speed as it starts to bite into the air, _he looks a bit like an older version of my uncle Edward…_ The pilot speaks into his comms, "Everything all right back there?" and the man replies through his own headset in an unsteady voice, "Oh yes. I've never been in one of these before, that's all." _That is most decidedly __**not**__ all_, the young man thinks as the Sea King begins to lift off; he has seen that look before. Hell, he's worn that shocked, stunned, it-can't-be -true look himself, just as he too has surreptitiously wiped away tears when he thought there was no-one to see. Once they have cleared the base, the pilot increases the rotor pitch on the bright yellow whirlybird, climbing higher, and sets course for London. _If we're there overnight, I might even pop in and see Grandma_, he muses, and then turns his attention fully to the job at hand. _It's just another mission, even if this one's for Five…_

ooooo

It's hardly unusual to see a chopper touching down on the hospital helipad: what is highly unusual, though, is for one to arrive without a trauma team standing by, ready to rush a critically injured patient inside. Instead, Dimitri watches from the rooftop entrance as the big machine's landing gear kisses the concrete; he ducks out towards it while the rotors are still turning, and slides the rear door open impatiently as soon as the locks are disarmed. "Thanks, fellas, I'll take it from here," he tells the crew, only to do a double take when he catches sight of the pilot's name, emblazoned across the front of his helmet. "Oh, er, Sir!... Your…" he fumbles, and the pilot grins, amused at his discomfiture. "Flight Lieutenant will do nicely, thanks." The older man has unstrapped himself now, and with a deferential handshake and a word of thanks to the pilot, he disembarks, and stands at the edge of the parapet, hands buried in his pockets, looking towards a rather distinctive building on the other side of the river, waiting for the tall, powerfully built young man to escort him inside, and into the very heart of darkness itself.

ooooo

_It's the waiting that is worse than anything else_, Erin concludes, glancing between the double doors and the glassed-in viewing room of the morgue, where Harry has now been planted, unmoving as a standing stone and as silent as one, for over three hours. All she wants now is to see Dimitri reappear, with the man she hopes will somehow be able to get through to her boss, in his wake. She's bone tired now, and cold, and hungry. More than anything, she is desperate to go home and watch her little girl peacefully sleeping, until the world starts to make some sort of sense once more, but she won't leave until she knows that Harry is in good hands. Finally, she sees them; Dimitri, swinging along with his long, easy stride, and an older man, hastening to keep up. _He has such a kind face, like everyone's favourite uncle; whatever was he doing in the Service? _is her initial thought as she observes them approaching, and then Dimitri is pushing the doors open and the gentleman – for such he is, she senses instinctively– walks towards her, right hand outstretched, even as his eyes cut towards the morgue; he blanches as he removes his cap out of respect, and his step falters, before he gathers himself determinedly, and she recognises the quiet strength that lies beneath his rather timid outer seeming. _Oh, now I see why she chose him…he must have been the heart of Section D, in his day…there's always one who never becomes completely hardened and immured to this life we lead in defence of the nation. One who reminds us all of what it is we are fighting for…_

"Miss Watts. I would that we were meeting under better circumstances," he greets her, and she wishes she could crawl inside that mellifluous, warm voice and stay there, safe and secure, forever. A pair of grey-blue eyes, curiously set, scrutinises her shrewdly, noting the crumpled clothing, the bloodstains spattered across her blouse. Finally he says, "You're exhausted. You should go home. Have a hot bath and a hot toddy, and go to bed." She shakes her head. "I'll wait until you've spoken to him…he won't let anyone near them, that's why I'm out here. Thank you for coming." He smiles at her, a real, heart-warming smile, even though it's jagged with pain at the edges, and says, "I'll see what I can do." As he turns from her to stand in the entrance of the tiny viewing room, she catches the tightness around his eyes as he blinks nervously, the apprehension in his movements, the stiffening of his shoulders, and she realises with shock, _There's history there, and not just between him and Harry… dear God, what have I done?_

ooooo

_It's not the losing her that's killing me,_ Harry tells himself, as he holds her hand and smooths her hair, exactly as he has longed to do since the first moment she came stumbling into the briefing room, all those lifetimes ago…_it's the senselessness of it, the waste, the tragedy, the loss…no, it's the losing her, when she was finally within my reach… maybe if I lost my mind instead, it wouldn't matter quite so much, wouldn't feel as if my heart has been torn, still beating, out of my chest, only to be squeezed harder and harder by the steely fingers of some ancient, inexorable god, exacting vengeance and justice and punishment all in one act of the most breathtaking cruelty…Ruth would know which one I'm trying to think of. Ruth, my darling… my love, my soulmate, my life._

_It's not the losing her that's killing me,_ Harry tells himself_, it's the thought of living for one more second without her. Now all those Shakespearean tragedies that I once thought so melodramatic make perfect sense. It's the only logical answer, when the love of one's life is killed before one's eyes…one should die too. I know a hundred ways to kill a man, but I need only one to join her in the peaceful dark, beyond..._

" 'For fear of that, I still will stay with thee,'" says a familiar voice from the doorway, gently and in a tone of infinite sadness. Harry raises his eyes in disbelief: "_Malcolm_?!"

**A/N: Malcolm is quoting from Romeo's deathbed soliloquy, in **_**Romeo and Juliet.**_


	2. Chapter 2

He shifts uneasily in the doorway, but Malcolm meets that hollow stare, holding Harry's eye with a bravery he would ordinarily never have been able to sustain. This is not about him, or even about them; this is about the man who is standing before him, covered in Ruth's blood, even as he holds her hand tenderly and strokes her hair with all the wonder of a lover in the first flush of discovery, smoothing the dark wing of her fringe back from her pale forehead with a rhythm of almost hypnotic intensity:

_Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…_

_As long as I'm with her, holding her hand and saying her name, she's not really gone at all, _Harry tells himself._ She's just asleep, or perhaps in a coma… but she's still here. With me. She wouldn't leave me like that, all that life and brilliance and passion just poured out across the cold, wet grass…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…_

Harry looks away first, his gaze dropping back to Ruth's face dismissively, while his former colleague and old friend watches, heart cracking wide open with grief at the sight of such silent despair. After a time, he takes a tentative step into the room, and Harry rumbles instantly, "Get _away_ from her," his voice so darkly menacing that anyone else would have turned and fled; instead Malcolm takes one more step, then another, his eyes always on the older man, until he is facing him across the gurney. "_Don't touch her_!" Harry growls, as Malcolm reaches out towards him. "Harry," he says, as his hand makes tenuous contact with Harry's, still desperately clutching Ruth's. "Harry, I'm so sorry," he continues, although his throat is thick with unshed tears, and for the first time, the other man stops stroking Ruth's hair. _Ruth… Ruth… __**Ruth.**_

Harry's sudden stillness is a terrible thing to see, and Erin, observing from beyond the glass, realises that she is holding her breath in total concentration; this gentle man, with the thinning, reddish hair and the kindest eyes she has ever seen, is approaching her boss with all the caution of a bomb disposal expert faced with a particularly lethal IED. "I'm so sorry," he says again, even more softly, and with incalculable patience and humility, he begins to unentwine Harry's thick, strong fingers from Ruth's small, cold ones. _He has the touch of an artist, and the soul of a saint, _Erin thinks, watching in fascination as Malcolm carefully releases Ruth's hand from Harry's grasp. She is nearly, but not quite, unaware that her own hand is now wrapped in Dimitri's large, rather nice one. _How did that happen?_ Erin wonders, before deciding that she will allow it. _Just this once_…

When at last he has separated them, Malcolm reverently folds Ruth's hands over her breast, and lightly passes his palm over her eyelids, closing her dull, filmed-over eyes, no longer a piercing greenish-blue, but a flat, opaque non-colour, saying something in Welsh under his breath as he does so. Ruth's body looks like a medieval carving in ivory when his ministrations are complete, and Harry, standing beside him, hands hanging uselessly at his sides now, begins to howl like a wild creature, mortally wounded; it is a shocking noise, raw and like nothing that Erin has ever heard before, or ever wants to hear again for as long as she lives. Dimitri looks down at her questioningly, shuddering at the sound of Harry's naked pain, and she nods: _Let's go. _

_There's nothing more we can do here, anyway,_ Erin reasons, as Malcolm delicately draws the sheet up over Ruth's face and then turns to attend to Harry. Her boss tilts towards him, still making that heartrending noise of absolute suffering, until his forehead is just touching the outer aspect of Malcolm's shoulder and his fists are clenched like a boxer's in the heavy knit of his old colleague's guernsey. She turns around as she reaches the double doors, just as Harry seems to stagger and lose his balance; Malcolm catches him as he crumples to the floor, and unlike Lot's wife, Erin knows that she mustn't look back any more; what is taking place in that tiny, glassed-in room is not for anyone to witness, and she leaves without another glance.

Much later, the two men leave the morgue, Malcolm leading Harry like a small child as he hails a black cab outside the hospital and gives an address in Westminster, just over the river. It is Malcolm who pays the driver, Malcolm who locates the keys in Harry's stiff, dirty clothing, Malcolm who lets them into Harry's little mews apartment. He moves around the unfamiliar space, turning up the thermostat, drawing the curtains, finding light switches and little pieces of Ruth as he goes. Here on the mantelpiece is a well-thumbed edition of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, just as she left it, and there are her shoes, lined up in the hallway; on the kitchen bench is an opened packet of the HobNobs that she so loves – _loved_, he reminds himself, feeling ill at the thought of food – to enjoy with a cup of tea in her chipped old mug from Corpus Christi; the mug itself still sits in the sink, to be washed up when its owner returned this evening…Malcolm finds that he can't bear the sight of something left undone, and he rinses the mug out before setting it on the draining board.

In the cupboard over the cooker, he finds what he is looking for, and carries the squat, dimpled bottle and two tumblers back into the sitting room, where Harry stares into the gas fire and holds something against his cheek; _a ladies' cardigan or wrap of some kind,_ Malcolm decides, as he pours several fingers into each glass, and sets the bottle on the low table between them. He hates whisky, but tonight he would drink from the waters of the Styx itself, if only Harry would say something. When he finally does, he sounds like the Harry he knows of old, just for a moment.

"So, where the bloody hell have _you _been for the last year?" he begins belligerently, somewhere halfway through his second drink. "And why are you here now? Who leaked?" Malcolm grimaces, as much at Harry's hoarse, harsh tone as at the whisky now burning its way into his stomach, and wonders how much to tell him. "I went off the grid, after Albany. Mother and I had to clear out of Hampstead in a hurry, you know, and it frightened her very badly. So I paid a little visit to Tom Quinn, got some advice, and dropped out of sight. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder; the idea of it terrified me." Harry grunts in disdain, fixing Malcolm with the interrogatory stare he knows so well of old. _"And?"_ he prompts; Malcolm sighs, peering into the depths of his whisky, glinting a warm golden-brown in the crystal tumbler.

"Did you know that Ruth had updated your Next of Kin form recently?" At the mention of her name, Harry's eyes blaze bright hazel. "Of course I did. I asked her to do it at the same time as she changed her own." Malcolm exhales slowly; he had thought as much, of course, but it was still surprisingly difficult for him to hear. "Well, she listed my number right at the bottom – as a last resort, I suppose. She must have gotten it from Tom. Why didn't you ask her to list Catherine, or even Graham, instead?"

Harry looks straight at him, then, pupils black and bottomless as an ocean crevasse, and twice as bleak. "Because I expressly told her not to. I didn't want them dragged into our world unnecessarily; she and I were going to be everything to each other, you see. I didn't think I'd need anyone else; so much for that little dream of Utopia, then." His words are hard, but his voice starts to tremble towards the end. _The whisky's beginning to erode Harry's reserve_, Malcolm notes, and chooses his next words carefully. "I think she knew that something like this might happen one day, and if it did, she didn't want you to be alone, or amongst people who didn't know you like we…like_ I_…do. Whatever lies in the past, Harry, I'm here now, for as long as you need me." Harry drains his glass and in the same movement raises his arm to smash the vessel on the hearth, and before Malcolm can intervene, the crystal shivers into a hundred tiny shards.

"Damn it, Malcolm, I've missed you," Harry whispers at length, and the man sitting opposite him nods slowly. "I know. I've missed you too." Harry's face creases, then, and burying his face in his arms, his body shakes with the effort of suppressing his sobs. Malcolm quietly gets up and goes upstairs, partly to look for the bathroom, and partly from his wish to give Harry a modicum of privacy: and there it is, hanging faintly on the air as he passes the master bedroom, ready to ambush him in an instant. Ruth's favourite perfume, a scent that has always reminded him of an English flower garden after rain.

It is as if he has run into an invisible force field; his legs stop working, as memory after memory cascades through his consciousness, and his own feelings threaten to overwhelm him altogether, until he hears the muffled sound of Harry's heartbreak, and is reminded of his purpose here tonight. He finds the bathroom, and perches on the edge of the bath, chest heaving, fighting for control. Blushing, he spots a pair of Ruth's stockings, wrung out this morning and left to dry on the radiator, her purple toothbrush next to Harry's white one in the glass on the vanity, her towel hanging on the back of the door. The whole room is redolent of her, and unbearably personal. If he needed any further proof that Harry and Ruth had been together in the very fullest sense of the word, here it is, laid out before his eyes: her Dewberry body wash in the shower, her hairbrush on the window ledge, her fluffy pink slippers in the corner.

Malcolm forces himself to take it all in, and when he can absorb no more, he draws a long breath, bows his head, and prays, before going back down the stairs, to keep vigil over his friend. For her.

…_**O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek**_

_**To be consoled as to console;**_

_**To be understood as to understand;**_

_**To be loved as to love…**_

**A/N: Malcolm's words are from the Prayer of St Francis. For those who are wondering, as background to this fic, Malcolm has long carried a torch for Ruth, of which storyline there is (much, much) more in my major work in progress, **_**Hook, Line, and Sinker**_**. This fic is a standalone, but I have spent so much time in the world of **_**H,L&S**_** that inevitably some bits of head canon will get carried over into other stories! **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: It's another long weekend here, folks, and you know what that means! Yes, writing. Lots of writing… speaking of writing, my thanks go to everyone who is reading this fic and taking the time to leave a review. I'm delighted that you're enjoying it!**

_**Bach.**__ That bag is definitely playing Bach_, Calum thinks as he stares at the small pile of Ruth's belongings, huddled together on his desk; yesterday, he had gathered her things while the others had waited outside with Harry for the help that came too late, and had later brought them with him back to the Grid. Her new Mulberry shoulder bag, her mobile phone, and a delicate necklace that he had found on the blood-soaked grass, afterwards. _The chain must have snapped when they moved her_, he had thought at the time. He had automatically picked up the little pendant, with the idea of returning it to her, before remembering that she would not need it, ever again. _Shit, Ruth, why'd you have to tell Sasha the truth?_

He recognises the tune, not because he gives a damn about Bach, but because it was recently featured in a Strongbow cider advertisement on telly, and has managed to worm its way into his memory. He doesn't remember who told him that it was Bach, but there's a good chance it might have been Ruth. _She is…__**was…**__amazing like that_, Calum broods, still unable to believe he is referring to Ruth in the past tense, as he gazes at the bag and wonders if he should answer the call… _There can't be much battery life left by now..._ Finally, he delves gingerly into the capacious interior, feeling as if he is violating her trust even now, and retrieves the phone on the very last ring. He squints at the screen: _Mitera… who the hell?_ A few seconds later it beeps to announce that a voicemail message has been left, and he shifts uneasily from foot to foot, wondering if he should hack in and check it. _It must be somebody who hasn't heard yet…_

"Cal?" Erin's voice comes unexpectedly from directly behind him, and he jumps reflexively. "Is everything all right?" He spins round, looking like a little boy who has been caught stealing. "Ruth's phone… it was ringing," he offers, and holds out the device to her, hoping that she will relieve him of the responsibility of worrying about it any further. She peers at the screen; her face registers puzzlement, until Dimitri looms up behind her. "Whose mother is Greek?" he wants to know, squinting over her shoulder, and Erin glances back at the phone in her hand as if it has just turned into a venomous snake. _Oh, my God, it's Ruth's __**mother**__… Someone will have to tell her… _Calum makes enormous sheep's eyes at her in mute appeal, and she sighs. "I'll take care of it." She suspects that she will be saying that rather a lot in the next few weeks…

oooooo

An unfamiliar sound drags him out of the uneasy, uncomfortable doze he had fallen into, sometime in the darkest hours. It persists, and despite his bone-deep exhaustion, Malcolm struggles out of the pretty blue brocade wing chair he has spent the night in, after Harry had finally passed out, full of grief and guilt and whisky, slumped and snoring raggedly in the well-worn brown leather armchair opposite. In his stocking feet, he makes his way unsteadily towards the source of the irritating noise: the front door. He checks the small video screen just inside the front door, showing images from the CCTV cameras stationed strategically around the exterior of Harry's home, then shoots back the top and bottom bolts, turns the key, slips off the heavy safety chain and opens the door cautiously. "Miss Watts?" Erin hastily removes her thumb from the doorbell. "How is he?"

Malcolm doesn't say anything at first, just gazes at her with those kind, kind eyes, and after a few seconds she nods slowly. "I see… I'm sorry to intrude, but there's been a phone call… I thought he would want to be told." Erin digs the phone out of her handbag, and proffers it to him; he regards it with interest, both hands in his pockets, and then says, "Is…_was_… it hers?" Erin nods, but still he doesn't take it from her. Instead, she watches, feeling unaccountably nervous, as an indescribable expression passes across his face, and unshed tears glint in his eyes. "When I first knew her, she couldn't even text… and now she's got a smart phone. Oh, Ruth. _Tempus fugit_…" Erin places the sleek little unit into his outstretched palm; his fingers fold around it carefully, holding it like a talisman. He presses the On switch, and the missed call details are displayed on-screen; quickly, he looks back up at Erin, and a wordless moment of perfect understanding passes between them. "Ah. Did she know, do you think?" Erin frowns, before catching his meaning. "I'm not sure; Ruth never spoke of her family. You'd have to ask Harry." _Hence this visit_, Malcolm notes. "He's sleeping, at present. Leave it with me, Miss Watts."

Erin senses that her presence is no longer necessary, but still she hesitates on the doorstep. "Is there anything else I can do?" she asks, and he shakes his head slowly. "There's nothing any of us can do, now, except be here for him." She sighs, "I felt so useless…she died right in front of me, and there wasn't one thing I could have done that would have made any difference." The wise blue eyes hold hers, and after a minute he says gently, "You mustn't blame yourself, Miss Watts. She would have hated to think that any of us...any of _you_…felt guilty about what happened. Ruth understood the risks and dangers of the world she worked in, far better than most." Before she can prevent it, Erin's eyes fill with the tears she has not yet allowed herself to cry. _He's such a nice man_; _I'm so glad he's here with Harry… _she quickly wipes the tell-tale moisture away, and impulsively rises on her toes to lightly brush a kiss on Malcolm's cheek. "Thank you, for everything," she murmurs into his ear before she steps back, once more in control of herself; to her amazement, the older man blushes deeply, even as the first real smile she has seen from him transforms his face. _He's not at all as plain as I first thought him…when he smiles, he's quite good looking, _Erin notes in the tiny part of her brain which automatically pays attention to such things, and then she is walking away, relief rushing over her. _There's no-one else in the world that should be with Harry, right now… _

_Please, don't leave me alone with him_, Malcolm beseeches her soundlessly, but she is already out of sight. _There are so many memories, and so many ghosts, here with us..._

oooooo

"What did she want?" The voice behind him in the tiny hallway is whisky-scorched and cracked, and Malcolm turns around swiftly, having locked the front door again. "Harry." He considers the state of the other man with concern, taking in his bloodied shirt, his sadly crumpled suit, his dulled eyes and trembling hands, and frowns. "Wouldn't you like to have a shower and change out of those clothes now?" he suggests, but Harry isn't listening. In one hand he clutches the embroidered, wine-coloured cardigan he has held all night, even as he slept awkwardly in his chair; the other is braced against the wall as he attempts to focus on Ruth's shoes, lined up on the hallway tiles.

There are two pairs: one, clearly worn for work, are neat black pumps; the other pair, somewhat to Malcolm's surprise, are new-looking, bright blue trainers. "She's only just started leaving things here," Harry whispers, almost to himself. "The trainers were for walking in the morning, before work… she wanted me to come with her, and do something about this…" Harry indicates his belly. "Harry. Please. Go upstairs…you'll feel so much better after you've had a shower, and put on some nice clean clothes. Harry peers down at his ruined shirt as if seeing it for the first time, and shrugs. "No, I don't think so," he mutters, and Malcolm sees the hand that is holding the cardigan clench convulsively. "What did the very fragrant Miss Watts want?" Harry asks again, fixing Malcolm with a bloodshot approximation of his patented interrogator's glare.

Silently, Malcolm brings the phone he has been holding behind his back into Harry's view; Harry blanches, before lunging for it. "_Give that to me!_" he barks, stale whisky fumes strong on his breath, and Malcolm hands it over with alacrity. "I suppose you've already hacked it, seen all her phone calls, read all our texts… is nothing sacred any more?" Hurt, Malcolm retreats to the stairs, and sits on the third step up, waiting for Harry to stop shouting. "I would never do that, Harry, it's Ruth's personal phone, for heaven's sake. Erin brought it round because there's been a phone call, one she didn't know how to handle." Taking a calming breath as he faces Harry, now glowering at him from the foot of the stairs, Malcolm continues, "Harry, had Ruth told her mother that you were… _together_?" And for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he has to move fast to catch his old friend: Harry drops to his knees as if he has been poleaxed.

**A/N: Ruth's ringtone is _Toccata and Fugue in D minor_, by JS Bach, in case you were wondering.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who is reading, enjoying, and reviewing this story. I have changed the rating, for language in this chapter, and because who knows where Harry's head might take us next…**

It seems to him, when the phone starts to shrill in the middle of the night, that it would be a very good idea to let his wife pick it up_. At this time, it's more likely to be for her, anyway,_ he reasons, squinting at the digital bedside clock, as she slips out of bed and carries the sleek black handset into the hallway, shrugging on her cream silk dressing gown as she goes. She shuts their bedroom door, and when he pulls the duvet up around his ears, he can hardly hear her low voice at all; and in a few minutes, he is asleep again. When she rushes back into the room, one slender hand over her mouth and her eyes wide with shock, she knows better than to shake him awake; instead, she stands at the foot of the bed, softly calling his name, until he rolls over, dishevelled and sleep-ridden _and still_, she thinks, _heart-stoppingly gorgeous_.

He cracks open one intensely blue eye, and as soon as he sees her face, he heaves himself upright, asking "What's wrong?" in that rich, deep voice, the one that still gives her chills whenever he speaks her name… her _real_ name, that is. "Darling, it's Ruth. _Harry's _Ruth… she's been killed on an op. And Jim Coaver… it's something to do with Russia… it's all so awful, I can hardly believe it! " He stares at her in confused incredulity, the bleary remnants of sleep still clouding his brain. "No. It can't be true, not Ruth… _how_?" And in that moment, Christine Dale Quinn knows that the world they have tried so hard to leave behind has not yet finished with them.

oooooo

It seems to him that he has been kneeling on the cold tiles of this hallway forever; _perhaps,_ Malcolm thinks hazily, _this is what Purgatory is like; not a fiendishly hot antechamber to the eternal flames, but this bitter chill, ceaselessly seeping into one's soul…_ Harry had gone down like a felled ox, crumpling into himself as he collapsed onto the bottom step. Malcolm has tried everything he can think of, and still Harry will not move, or speak, or even look at him; he is hunched protectively around Ruth's cardigan, still clenched in one hand, and her phone, now clutched in the other, while the tears roll silently down his cheeks. _Dear God, help me… what am I going to do with him? _ He tries one final time, his knees beginning to scream their protest at his mistreatment of them; you're not as young as you once were, they remind him, as they begin to throb painfully. _Anything,_ he thinks, _would be better than this frightening silence, this stillness… it's as if his spirit has vacated his body, and left it slumped here on the stairs…_"Harry. I'm sorry to keep asking, but everything you told me last night, about you, and Ruth, and the house she was going to buy… did her mother know? It's only that Five has procedures, and…"

"_Fuck _Five." The voice is cracked, but it is undoubtedly Harry's; with a sudden heave, he lurches into a more upright, more defiant position, and his bloodshot eyes challenge the man still kneeling like a penitent on the tiles before him. "_Fuck _them," he mutters again; Malcolm winces, as he gets up slowly, eyeing Harry all the while. "She didn't know, did she? Ruth's mother, that is." Harry looks down at his hands. "She wanted to wait until she was certain about the house. I thought she might tell her mother sooner, but you know how stubborn she is…"

Malcolm nods, relieved beyond words that Harry seems to be behaving in a more familiar manner. "How about that shower? It would do you the world of good, you know." Harry shakes his head. "I _can't_." Malcolm decides to risk it; he sits down on the step next to his friend, and asks gently, "Why not?" Harry looks at him directly, then, and in his eyes, no longer the fierce amber of a hawk's, but the colour of dulled copper instead, Malcolm reads the answer: _because __**she's**__ up there. She's in every breath of air perfumed with her scent, in the fluffy slippers in the bathroom, in the intimacy of her stockings, shaped by her body, still hanging on the radiator._ The sudden realisation hits Malcolm so hard, he gasps. "I'll be right back," he tells Harry, climbing awkwardly to his feet.

oooooo

It seems to her that he could at least try to answer her emails within a week of receiving them; she knows that he's a very busy man, but seriously, how hard would it be for him to write a quick reply, on his way from one meeting to another, or when he's not actually engaged in saving the world? _Talk about the cobbler's children having no shoes_, she thinks, as she stares at her Hotmail inbox, sitting in the only working internet café in Gaza, and signals to the waiter that she would like another coffee and a piece of _kanafeh_. _Granted, I'm only his daughter, after all, not the whole sodding United Kingdom, but still..._

The young woman with the unnervingly clear gaze minimises the browser on her battered laptop and pulls up a Word document: the runsheet for tomorrow's filming, if all goes to plan_. I should know better than to rely on him…he was never there when I needed him, so what else is new? It's just that he sounded…apprehensive, somehow, the last time I heard from him. He said he had something to tell me, and then the bloody signal had dropped out…I hope he's all right. I hope he wasn't about to tell me he has cancer, or something equally hideous…not that I'd be surprised, living the way he does, too much whisky and then all those rich dinners at the club, not to mention all the stress he's under…oh, Dad. Please be all right…maybe I'll try and call again tonight._ With this thought, the young woman with hair as fair as her father's finishes her coffee. Twitching her _hijab_ into place with a practiced movement, she steps into the hot, crowded street.

oooooo

It seems to him that she is still here, perhaps just in the next room, even though Malcolm has done his best to air the top floor, flinging open all the windows and filling the little house with crisp, cold autumn air; even though Malcolm has removed everything of hers from the bathroom (_along with his own razor and the contents of the medicine cabinet,_ Harry notes wryly) and found a fresh towel to hang on the hook she had left hers on just the other day… undressed and unheeding, he stands in the middle of the bathroom floor, staring at the radiator where she had left her stockings to dry…

'_Be careful! I haven't got another pair… here, let me. Oh, you men are so clumsy…' _Once more he sees Ruth, daintily lifting one foot onto the rim of the bathtub, rolling her eyes to let him know she's only teasing; and then she teases him properly, slowly slipping off first one stocking, then the other, the sheer nylon whispering against her skin and making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up… and then, and then… and then it had just been the two of them, and all the time in the world, at last. _At last, my love has come along…isn't that how that old torch number had gone? ...my lonely days are over, and life is like a song…_

Afterwards, she had gotten out of bed, despite a determined effort on his part to prevent her from ever leaving his side again, gathered up the trail of discarded garments, and tossed his things into the overstuffed laundry hamper… she had quickly rinsed out her own smalls, hung her rumpled dress to get the worst of the wrinkles out, and then come back to join him, curling beneath the duvet as if she had always belonged there, on that side of the bed. 'Towers will wonder why I'm wearing the same dress two days running,' she had fretted, and Harry had said, 'Towers will _know_ why, if he's even half as observant as I think he is. You'll have to start leaving a few things here, if… if _this_ is going to be a regular occurrence?' She had looked at him solemnly for a long moment, and then replied, 'I suppose it _would_ be the most sensible thing…' Harry had rolled her on her back then, laughing, and… and…_No. She can't be gone, not when I can still feel the all the different shapes of her in my hands, my fingertips tingling with the excitement of each new discovery, and the warmth of her against my skin… Ruth, my Ruth, tell me, why the hell did we deny ourselves for so long? All those dreary, lonely years apart, for such a short season of bliss…and even the few weeks we had together were poisoned by that fucking Russian bitch… Damn it, think of something else, Pearce, and quick. _

A few nights later, she had turned up on his doorstep with an oversized Sainsbury's carrier bag, and from it had produced a chipped blue mug, a new packet of HobNobs, a pair of fluffy pink slippers, half a dozen books, and a couple of changes of clothing. 'All moved in?' he had asked drily, watching her hang her clothes – all dark, sombre things now, nothing like the rather Bohemian styles she had worn, at the beginning, all those years ago. He preferred her in the others, if he was being honest, the unusual jackets and colourful skirts, the pretty blouses… the Ruth who had worn those was long gone, though, and a very different woman stood before him now. 'I've learnt to travel light,' she had smiled back at him, those remarkable eyes of hers shining softly, and then… and then… **RAT-A-TAT-TAT! RAT-A-TAT-TAT! RAT-A-TAT-TAT!**

"Harry? Are you all right in there?" _What? Who's that… oh yes, Malcolm: he must be hanging around on the landing like a faithful retriever, worried lest I might be doing myself in_… Harry sighs, and finally turning on the water, he climbs stiffly into the tub, and stands beneath the soothing stream. _If only…_


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Life has been not quite as I would like it lately, but the one thing that seems to keep on keeping on despite it all (or perhaps in spite of it!) is my writing, even when I thought I was going on hiatus, so here is the next chapter, with thanks to my very patient readers and reviewers. **

In the pale sunlight, his former colleague looks exhausted, asleep in the blue brocade armchair that Harry had bought for Ruth, only a week ago. Malcolm's face is drawn, with bruised-looking skin under the eyes…_and that three-day growth of grizzled ginger stubble isn't doing him any favours,_ Harry notes, as he knots his tie. _I wonder where he keeps himself hidden away now…nowhere with a decent barber, by the_ _look of it._

Somewhere in between standing beneath the shower, swallowing back the sobs that threatened to tear him apart, and staring at Ruth's few dresses, hanging forlornly in his wardrobe, a change had come over Harry, one he knows well: 'battle readiness', they had called it during officer training. It seems to Harry that most of his life has been spent in this state, but he can't deny it has served him well, for it has kept him alive for more than thirty years, in a career with a notoriously short lifespan. Dressed in his best suit, he looked more like the man he had been, just twenty-four hours earlier: powerful, enigmatic, dangerous… _you and I, we're made of secrets_, Ruth had whispered in his ear. He had turned from the mirror, tearing himself from the temptation to look for her, and had slowly gone downstairs.

Although he hates to admit it, Harry is going to need some help…reluctantly, he shakes Malcolm awake, and hands him Ruth's phone. "Hack it." Startled out of slumber, the other man blinks blearily, yawning, "Are you sure?" _No, but I have to know… _He nods curtly, watching as Malcolm's quick, clever fingers set to work. _God, I've missed him on the Grid…_Tariq and Calum were both good technical officers, in their way, but no-one Harry has worked with, before or since, had possessed even a fraction of the sheer kindness of heart and unimpeachable integrity of the man before him…except for her.

_They had always gotten along so well together…I've sometimes wondered if her unexpected return was the real reason that he decided to retire so suddenly, though. Perhaps he finally decided that he had seen enough of that particular play, and had no wish to suffer through the sequel…no, don't think about it, not now: not when he's the only reason you're still here. He must have known I'd have my old service revolver stashed away, and found it when I was in the bathroom. If it was anyone else, I'd have broken his neck for that…an officer never surrenders his sidearm...never surrenders...God, I'm so tired..._

"I've done it." Malcolm's mild voice draws him out of his grim reverie, and he looks down at the image on Ruth's lock screen with pain gripping his heart: a slightly blurry, long-distance shot of a portly, middle-aged man, sitting on a bench beneath a tree; the silhouette is only just recognisable as his own. "Play the message," he mutters, momentarily feeling as lost and fragile as a leaf on the wind. Malcolm's fingers fly across the screen and as if by magic, a woman speaks:

'Ruth? Oh, I _hate_ these wretched phones…it's your mother, checking about lunch tomorrow…you _are_ still coming, aren't you? And bringing your… _friend_? I hope he likes fish…I'm poaching a salmon. Do let me know, as soon as you can.'

Harry turns pale, but stays on his feet, and heads determinedly towards the front door; Malcolm watches, and waits with dread, wishing desperately for a shower and change of kit. "Where the bloody hell are my keys?" Harry shouts, as he hunts for them on the mahogany hall stand (_just there, Ruth's scarf, draped carelessly across one corner_…) and then feels through the pockets of his overcoat. "Harry…" Malcolm clears his throat, "I've got them." The older man turns towards him fiercely, and with alacrity, Malcolm steps back: grief-stricken or not, Harry is still a force to be reckoned with. "I'm sorry, but I don't think you're in a fit state to be driving, or, or going anywhere. Not alone, anyway. But if you'll just wait a few minutes, I'll take you wherever you want." To his surprise, Harry acquiesces, and Malcolm heads upstairs rapidly. Ten minutes later, he reappears, showered and shaved, and with his phone to his ear. "And it's definitely a 36R? Right, I'll be along to collect it shortly, thankyou!" Harry hears him say, before he rings off and holds up the keys. "Ruth's mother lives in Windsor now. Shall we go?"

Harry is surprised when Malcolm drives first to Jermyn St, gets out, vanishes through a blue-varnished doorway, and then swiftly reappears, wearing a dark suit. He looks more like the Malcolm that Harry remembers, a bit greyer and thinner, true, yet somehow filled out too, fitter, with more colour in his cheeks. _Wherever he's been holed up, it's doing him good…Ruth would have been so pleased to see him…last night, I think he wept for her too…don't think about it, don't think about last night, with her lying on that metal trolley, as cold as carved marble…__**don't think**__! _

As Malcolm heaves himself up into the driver's seat of the old green Defender – _how like Harry_, he had thought wryly, opening the garage door to find that his former Head's taste in personal transport still verged on the military – he says apologetically, "Sorry for the detour, but I didn't think my grubby old dig clothes were quite the thing to visit Ruth's mother in, and they were a getting a bit high, besides." Harry growls, "Let's get on with it, then," the gruff words belying his nervousness. Malcolm hesitates, picking up on Harry's tone of voice. "Are you sure you want to do this?" _No, I'm not sure…I may never be sure of anything, ever again…_ "Malcolm, somewhere in Windsor, Ruth's mother is making a lunch that her daughter will never eat… the least I can do is look her in the eye, as I tell her why. Now, _drive_."

The last thing Harry expects to see are Ruth's eyes, peering at him curiously from the other side of the door, as he stands on the front step of the tidy little cottage near Windsor Great Park. All his carefully planned words desert him at the shock of seeing them once more, luminous and bright as aquamarines; and then their expression changes from unrecognition to puzzlement, as they look past him. "Where's Ruth?" the eyes' owner enquires, beginning to frown, "Where's my daughter? Where's Ruth?" And as Harry stares helplessly at her, Malcolm steps forward. "Mrs…Miss…_Ms…_ Bickley, may we come in?" His voice is gentle, and she nods wordlessly, her eyes enormous as they take in the sight: one man, looking as white as a ghost, and the other…the other has the air of a vicar about him, somehow, although she has never seen a vicar in such a good suit, or one who looks so kind…

Elizabeth Bickley, formerly Evershed, feels terror twining itself around her heart, as she faces the two men standing in her hall_. Oh, no, please, no…I've already lost her once… _"Which of you is Harry?" she asks, and when the heavier one blinks at his name, she draws back apprehensively. _She knows, _Malcolm thinks, _she knows that Ruth once gave up everything for him…and she's terrified by his presence here, without her daughter. _"Mrs, erm, Ms Bickley…" She looks at him as if for the first time, and says, "Elizabeth. Please, call me Elizabeth," Her voice sounds like Ruth's, pleasantly low, and Malcolm swallows hard as he continues, "_Elizabeth… _I'm an old friend of your daughter's, Malcolm Wynn-Jones. Perhaps we might sit down?" She silently indicates the front room, and the two men follow her.

"What's happened?" she asks urgently, as soon as they are all stiffly seated, "Where is she?" Harry opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, his thoughts shattering as those eyes, so like _hers,_ burn into him, seeking the truth. Elizabeth looks next at Malcolm, and he swallows hard under her anxious scrutiny. Next to him, he can feel that Harry is trembling; and so as gently as he can, Malcolm tells her. "Elizabeth, this is very hard to say…yesterday, Ruth gave her life in the line of duty. She died protecting someone she loved…I'm so terribly sorry." Elizabeth stares at him, her face full of bewilderment and fear and slowly dawning comprehension. "No, that's not true. I don't understand. Ruth works in Whitehall now… she's an advisor to the Home Secretary, for God's sake…she left that life…she told me she had left it!"

Harry finds that he is unable to meet her gaze, as she says bitterly, "It was because of _you_, wasn't it? I begged her to find someone else, someone normal, but she wouldn't have it. She said she had loved you for too long, she could never be with anyone else...and much good it's done her. Oh, I know: you can't tell me anything, it's all top secret and the nation's security depends on it, but my daughter _died _because of you, didn't she? _Didn't she_?" Elizabeth is on her feet now, furious, and Malcolm says quietly to Harry, "We should leave." But still Harry sits, caught in the blowtorch intensity of those identical, blazing blue eyes, whispering, "I'm sorry…I'm sorry…" until she slaps him once, hard, right across the cheek; he bows his head, but does not flinch. "Get _out_," she cries, tears beginning to roll down her face, and Malcolm pulls Harry to his feet. "I'm so sorry, Elizabeth…we'll go now. Please, if there's anything I can do…" and he props an elegantly engraved card on the mantelpiece. Feeling not quite real himself, he guides an almost catatonic Harry out to the Defender, and is just about to climb in himself, when Elizabeth appears at her front gate, beckoning, his card clutched in her hand.

"I remember who you are, now," she begins, her voice unsteady, "Ruth thinks the world of you…she once told me that you were the only other person she had ever met who loves Homer and Ovid as much as she does…Malcolm, please, I have to know, is it real, this time? Is it true?" Malcolm's leaden heart turns over in his chest at the tiny, faint note of hope in her voice, and hating himself for extinguishing that final spark, he says slowly, "I'm afraid it is…she died in his arms. They were very much in love, you know…he's devastated." The older woman peers past him to the passenger seat where Harry is slumped, and takes a shuddering breath. "Where is she now? I have to _see_ her…I have to be certain, you know."

Malcolm sighs inwardly, and gives her the details of the hospital. "One more thing… I don't want an official funeral. She's_ my_ daughter, although I lost her to that wretched life from the day she joined GCHQ…at least now, I can take care of her myself." Her look challenges him to defy her; instead, he places one hand lightly on her shoulder. "I understand," he says, and he truly does; she sees it in his eyes, full of compassion and sadness, before he moves away, towards the Defender. Not for the first time, Elizabeth wonders what tragic quirk in her daughter's nature had made Ruth set her heart on a man like Harry Pearce_. Surely she would have been better off with someone more like…well, like Malcolm…but then she always did love the ancient Greek tragedies… star-crossed lovers and endless quests… I never quite understood the fascination, myself. And now they tell me she's gone…how is that possible? Oh, it can't be true…not my Ruth. Not again…_

Malcolm looks back at her a final time as he reaches the driver's door: a small, neat woman, standing behind the gate, her silvery hair cut in a shoulder-length bob, her face dominated by eyes the colour of the sea, and just as changeable_. I could almost be looking into the future, seeing the older Ruth…but the future we all face now is one without Ruth in it._ "If there's anything, anything at all…" Tears have begun to spill down her cheeks as she turns back towards the cottage. "I need a drink," Harry says shakily, as Malcolm gets in, "there must be a pub somewhere nearby…" Malcolm closes his eyes for a moment, struggling for composure, for the encounter with Elizabeth has rattled him badly, too. Her grief is of a different magnitude to Harry's, a primal emotion like nothing he has ever witnessed before…and he hadn't known that Ruth had looked so much like her mother. When he finally opens them again, he says to Harry, "I think I know just the place," as he switches on the ignition and the engine roars to life.

From the safety of her front room, Elizabeth watches the old green vehicle drive off, before giving in to her grief. _Ruth…my daughter…how can you be gone? What were you thinking of, putting yourself in harm's way? _She already knows the answer though, for she knows her daughter: _everyone but herself, that's who she was thinking of, and more especially, of __**him**__. _And Elizabeth Bickley, formerly Evershed, finds herself hating Harry Pearce more than she has ever hated anyone in her life. _She went away to save him once before, and now she's gone forever…my beautiful, brilliant daughter. My little girl. My Ruth._


	6. Chapter 6

_That's odd_, Calum thinks, as he conducts a routine check of the external email server, _someone's using one of Harry's old drop-boxes. Better check it out, see who it is… _His eyes go wide as he reads the message saved in the Draft folder, and then he's up, out of his chair, and running for the door. _Shit…I didn't even know he __**had **__a kid! _

Seated in Harry's office, Erin looks up, startled, as Calum rolls the door back with a bang. "You have to see this!" Quickly, he accesses the server on Erin's desktop, and pulls up the draft email for her to read.

**Hi Dad, are you OK?**

**You're starting to worry me now, and that's supposed to be my thing: me, worrying you. So please stop saving the world long enough to write, or I'll get properly cross.**

**It's lovely and warm today, and I'm getting lots of nice pictures.**

**Wish you were here!**

**C x**

_Damn, damn, damn it all to hell... _Erin drums her fingers on the desktop, trying to decide what to do; Calum watches her, his expression comprised of equal parts of curiosity and anxiety. "So, who's C?" he finally asks, and she blinks, before turning to Harry's personnel file, still open on the desk before her from Dimitri's quick read-through the night before…_is it really only one day later? It feels like this nightmare has been going on forever…and how much worse it must be for Harry…_ "She's his daughter, Catherine Townsend. Apparently, she's a film-maker who specialises in documenting the Palestinian struggle…" Calum whistles his surprise, eyebrows raised, before adding, "Yeah, well, I think she may be in danger. See here?" and he leans over her shoulder to point to the second-last line of the message. "It's an old code, requesting extraction… Harry must have taught it to her." At that, Erin picks up the phone, pushes a speed-dial button, and says crisply, "Yes. Get me Six in Tel Aviv. _Now_."

oooooo

_That's odd,_ Malcolm reflects, _how is it that the river can look so peaceful, and that pair of swans so utterly unconcerned, when there is so much pain in the world? _ Seated opposite, on a bench outside the Watermans Arms in Eton, just over the bridge from Windsor, Harry is also watching the graceful white birds, slowly drifting downstream. "They mate for life, you know," he observes, downing his third whisky; to Harry's irritation, Malcolm has been contentedly nursing a half of bitter for the last hour. "Yes, they do. I was thinking of those lines of Yeats; _'Unwearied still, lover by lover, They paddle in the cold_..." Harry grunts, and tips half his pint of ale down his throat. "Yeats, that little Irish bastard. What did he know about anything?" Malcolm takes a sip of his own drink, and prays for patience. "Well, apart from being one of the greatest poets of the last century, he knew quite a lot about love, and loss." Harry glares at him. "Did he, now. How illuminating. That makes _two_ of us, then."

Malcolm blinks, surprised at Harry's tone, but before he can speak, Harry goes on belligerently, "You can't understand, you've never lost anyone like this, or you wouldn't be sitting there spouting bits of poetry about bloody swans!" He drains his pint, and is getting up to weave his way inside to the bar for another, when Malcolm replies so softly that Harry isn't sure that he's even speaking at first, "That's not fair, Harry, and it's not true. Remember Colin?" There is such quiet sorrow in his voice that Harry stops, and forces himself to focus, belatedly recalling the fate of Malcolm's best friend, and the terrible intensity of his grief at Colin's murder. _They had been as thick as thieves, those two…such a senseless death. But then, they're all senseless, one way or another…Helen, Danny, Fiona, Zaf, Adam, Ben, Jo, Ros, Tariq… and now my dearest, darling Ruth… I'm steeped in death, surrounded by it…and I'm so tired of it… _A single swan, looking lost, wings its way overhead, the air rushing through its stiff primary flight feathers, and the two men swiftly look up at the strange sound, a lifetime of survival instincts coming to the fore once more. Harry thinks he hears Malcolm mutter something beneath his breath, something about a fifty-ninth swan… but then, Harry thinks he hears a lot of things now. _Ruth, mostly._ Her all-too-rare laughter, or the low thrill of her voice as she cried out in the throes of pleasure…_how can it be that I will never hear her say my name again?_

After a few minutes, Malcolm continues, staring out at the wide brown curve of the Thames, "Albany took a bigger toll than you know. Mother never recovered from the shock of Lucas North turning up on our doorstep, and then having to leave home so quickly. She died – her heart wasn't good to begin with – two months later. And I too have loved, and lost, so don't presume to think you've cornered the market there, either." Malcolm keeps watching the two swans on the water, now almost out of sight; and Harry, even through his anguish and grief and drunkenness, is overcome with sudden shame. Touching his friend on the shoulder, he says gruffly, "I…I apologise. That was uncalled for; and I am very sorry to hear about your mother. You must miss her very much…" Malcolm turns to look at him then, eyes glistening, and says simply, "Yes, I do. I miss them all."

oooooo

_That's odd, _Tom tells himself, _I thought he'd gone native, somewhere in Wales…_he checks the cryptic text message again, before calling out to his wife, "I'm going out for a bit…got to see a man about a dog." She appears in the doorway, as elegant as the first day he met her, all cool blonde looks and impeccable tailoring. "_Ree_-ally." Her American drawl lends an extra-sarcastic inflection to the two syllables, and Tom schools his face into impassivity. "Yes, really." As he passes her, she whispers into his ear, "Say hello to Harry for me." Tom can't help it; he breaks into a grin as he plants a kiss squarely on her forehead. "You always did know too much for your own good," he chuckles as he goes downstairs, and she calls after him, "Tell him that the Company looks after its own…they won't forget what happened to Jim…" _No,_ Tom thinks grimly, _and nor will I, nor Harry, nor any of us who know the truth._ "Don't keep dinner for me!" he shouts back, and then he's out on the street, unlocking his sleek silver Audi, and laying in the GPS coordinates for Eton village.

_Things __**must**__ be bad, _he muses, while weaving through the London traffic, heading for the M25, _if they've dragged Malcolm out of his solitude… I should have known, when Ruth contacted me last week for the first time since I left Five, and begged for his phone number, that something was wrong…Ruth, when I think of how timid you were at first, and how terrified when you were caught passing intel to GCHQ… perhaps the kindest thing would have been to have sent you back then, before you and Harry started waltzing around each other…_Tom's eyes are focused on the road before him, but his mind is a lifetime away. _And poor, gentle Malcolm…did she ever even know you were there? No wonder you've called for backup…though I'm probably the last person Harry wants to see._

oooooo

_That's odd_, Catherine notes, more alert than usual after a bomb scare while shooting the day before_, those two men have been following me for the last ten minutes_…she steps into a side street, out of the glare of the late afternoon sun, and waits to see what they will do. One stops at the entrance to the street, and the other turns into it, towards her. She can tell at a glance they're British. Her heart begins to pound as the shorter of the two walks towards her. "What do you want?" she asks in Arabic, and he answers smoothly in the same tongue, "Miss Townsend, we're from the embassy… please, you need to come with us." Her heart stands still at hearing her real name, and then the fear comes, for there can only be one reason. "What's happened? Is he all right?" The other man steps forward. "We can't talk here, but yes, he's alive. There's a flight to London in two hours, and you need to be on it." Catherine swallows hard, past the lump that has forced its way into her throat, and says firmly, "Code phrase. I'm not going anywhere with you until you confirm the code phrase." The two men exchange glances that say, _she's her father's daughter, all right._ The shorter one replies promptly, "'_At such a time, I'll loose my daughter to him'_." Catherine smiles to herself: _Shakespeare. Of course. Hamlet, her father's favourite…_ "Let's go."

oooooo

_That's odd,_ the angry young man broods, frowning at his phone_. She never contacts me unless she's in the country…and as far as I know, she's still in Beirut, or Gaza, or some other fucked-up place…why she needs to go over there to make documentaries about how one lot of people screws over another lot, when there's plenty of it happening right here, I'll never understand. I suppose I should call her, see that she's OK, but if she thinks I'm going anywhere near __**him**__, she's got another think coming. The last time I saw him, I told him I never wanted to see him again unless it was at his funeral…and even then, I'd only be staying long enough to make sure the bastard was really dead. _He stares at the message on the screen, debating with himself, until with a muttered expletive, he dials his sister's number. She answers on the second ring. "Cat? Yeah, it's G. What's up?"

oooooo

_That's odd_, Harry ponders as he stands at the bar, waiting for another round of drinks_, that tall man who's just walked in looks very like Tom Quinn… I wonder what he's doing, these days? I wish I hadn't had to let him go like that…but what choice did I have? Sometimes it feels like my whole life's been made up of dreadful decisions I've had to make, whether I've wanted to or not. Decisions that generally brought the desired operational outcome, true, but at what cost? Perhaps I did Tom a favour, after all…gave him the chance of a normal life. Or as normal as an ex-spook's can be… _The tall man shoulders his way purposefully past a group of older students from Eton College, wearing mufti and speaking with the self-assured voices of those born to wealth, power and privilege, and Harry feels the blood drain from his face as he gets a better look at the man's profile. _No, it can't be...what, in the name of all that's holy, is __**he**__ doing here?_

When he returns to the weather-worn benches overlooking the river, shivering at the chill starting to rise from the water as the sun sinks into the West, Harry finds not one, but two old friends waiting for him.

oooooo

_That's odd_, Elizabeth ruminates, as she looks upon the still, pale body of her daughter,_ I hadn't noticed that Ruth had begun to get grey hairs…when did my little girl start to age? Somehow, I always think of her being twenty-five, and as happy as she had been when she was still at Oxford… before she joined the security services. Before the music stopped… she used to play the piano and the violin so beautifully, and she was always singing, or humming, or tapping her foot to a rhythm that only she could hear. Before she met __**him, **__and her life was overrun with secrets and lies. I will never, ever, forgive __**him**__ for taking her from me. My daughter. My only child. _Elizabeth turns back to the morgue attendant, and says in a calm, quiet voice that belies the extraordinary amount of control she is exerting just to keep from screaming until her lungs bleed, "How do I go about getting her body released?" When the attendant demurs, mumbling about 'a special case' and 'obtaining official permission first', Elizabeth directs the full force of her icy blue stare at the hapless young man until he blushes and falls silent, fiddling nervously with his clipboard. "I'm her _mother_, and her only next of kin. Now, where do I sign?" The young man consults his feet abashedly. "Umm…"

oooooo

_That's odd,_ the morgue supervisor wonders, checking over the day's paperwork, _I thought this one was an Official Release Only… oh well, obviously not. The autopsy's been done, the pathologist has signed off on COD…and there'll soon be another one to take her place. That's the only dead cert around here, _he thinks, amused at his own wit, _the dearly departed are always with us… _

Far down the river Thames, the mournful cry of a lone swan echoes through the night, carrying back faintly to the three men huddled outside the riverside pub.

_**I have looked upon these brilliant creatures, **_

_**And now my heart is sore.**_

_**All's changed since I, hearing at twilight, **_

_**The first time on this shore**_

_**The bell-beat of their wings above my head **_

_**Trod with a lighter tread. **_

_**A/N – Malcolm is quoting from The Wild Swans at Coole by W.B. Yeats. The lines at the end of this chapter are from the same poem. **_


	7. Chapter 7

One by one, they gather at the old Thameside pub: Dimitri and a nervous-looking Calum; Erin, bringing Catherine straight from the airport; another large black car pulls up on the High Street, and William Towers steps out, grim-faced as he approaches Harry, right hand outstretched. "Harry, I'm so sorry. Ruth was very special. If there is anything you need, you have only to name it." The two men shake hands warmly, although the stunned sorrow in Harry's eyes is hard to meet, and Towers looks around the little group curiously.

The young woman by his side can only be Harry's daughter: she has his eyes, and something of his fierce independence. Next, he nods to Miss Watts and the other members of Section D, before his gaze is drawn by the tall, powerfully built man with the sombre expression, leaning on the wall, slightly apart from the others: a spook, by the look of him, but not one Towers knows. _Not a man I'd care to get on the wrong side of_, he decides; last, he notices another stranger, a man of about Harry's age, with a gentle face and a meek demeanour. _Who's that?_ he wonders, watching as Erin sits down next to the man and puts a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of thanks.

The man looks at Erin, his expression transforming from seriousness into a smile of rare sweetness, and nods towards Harry, and his daughter. After a lifetime in politics, Towers is fluent at reading body language, and he has no trouble interpreting what he sees: _thank you, for bringing her home._ _A family friend, perhaps,_ he decides. _Someone who has a long history with Harry, anyway. _"I'll get the next round, shall I?" he offers, and a murmur of thanks ripples around the gathering when he sets the tray of drinks down. For once, William Towers feels like just another human being, a man who is mourning the loss of his friend, together with others who had known her too. _Ruth would have loved this,_ he thinks, and raises his glass.

oooooo

Across the Thames, Elizabeth sits with her daughter, and talks. She tells her everything: how angry she is, how much she loves her, how hard the last few years have been. The funeral director has long since left for the night, but Elizabeth remains; she had flatly refused to leave. "Lock me in, if you like, but I'm not letting her out of my sight." And so she was permitted to stay, keeping vigil, and talking. Occasionally, she cries, overwhelmed at the sight of her child lying so still, so pale, so silent. They hadn't talked very much in the last year; Ruth's work had seemingly absorbed her almost completely, and now Elizabeth knows why. _Harry. _

Looking back over her daughter's life, Elizabeth realises that from the first day Ruth set foot in Thames House, her fate was sealed. She had always attracted older men: there had been one or two faculty members, while she was at Oxford, that Ruth had thought might have been interested. She had said as much to her mother, once, and her voice had held a note of excitement that had alarmed Elizabeth, imagining her kind-hearted daughter as the innocent object of some cantankerous old academic's gnarled affections. Nothing had happened, though; or if it had, then Ruth had wisely decided not to tell her mother. And nor had she told her about Harry, until very recently. A few weeks ago, Ruth had mentioned that she was thinking of buying a house in the country; and then, little by little, she had started to mention _him_, in a voice that was vibrant with happiness.

When it dawned on her that Ruth was in fact intending to buy the house for them both, she had invited her daughter and this man to lunch, determined to meet him at last. A lunch that will never take place now; she wonders what she should do with a whole poached salmon. She talks to Ruth about it, and about her poor stepson, Peter, who had also died in the service of his country, or because of it…and about Ruth's father, James…perhaps losing him at such a critical age had affected Ruth more than she had thought at the time, wrapped in her own grief and unable to cope with a precociously bright thirteen year old, mourning her father deeply. Too late, she asks Ruth's forgiveness for sending her away to the school that she had hated so much at first; and then she asks forgiveness for a lot of things.

She forgives Ruth, too. For choosing exile; for allowing her family to believe she was dead for more than three years; for always putting her work first, and finally for loving _him_. For keeping _him_ a secret for all this time, for not sharing the most important thing in her life with her own mother; but Elizabeth will not, cannot, bring herself to forgive _him_. He should have never allowed himself to become involved with a woman so much younger, in the first place, and an employee, at that… the feelings that swirl through her when she thinks about Harry are indescribable, so strong that she has difficulty drawing breath.

Eventually, she begins to consider what must be done, as inconceivable as it is. _He_ has made a mockery of her once, making her believe her daughter had taken her own life, staging Ruth's funeral, even supplying the body…the memory of it makes her shudder in revulsion. No mother should have to endure her only child's funeral _twice_…what kind of monster does that? And what sort of hold had _he_ had on her, that she had been willing to die for him? In her rage and grief, she forgets Ruth's happiness as she spoke of Harry; she forgets the look on _his_ face as Malcolm said, 'She died protecting someone she loved'. She forgets everything except the overwhelming sense of loss that fills her until it overflows as sharp, wrenching sobs and tears that scald her eyes. _Ruth…Ruth…Ruth…_

When she is calm again, she looks upon her daughter's face, like a closed book that will never be read again, and vows: _I brought you into the world, my darling, and by God, I will have the sending of you from it. _

oooooo

The small group in the pub has fallen into a reflective mood. People talk, mostly about Ruth, remembering her, telling stories, recalling little things about her as they try to fix her in their memories for all time as perfectly as a dragonfly preserved in amber. _It is_, Harry supposes, _her wake, or as close to one as she is likely to get._ He says very little, but nods at various points in other people's anecdotes, while he gazes into his umpteenth whisky and wonders when it will all end. Catherine, next to him, appears to be listening with rapt interest as she builds up a picture of the woman her father had loved for so long. Calum, Dimitri and Erin have all congregated in a corner to reminisce; William Towers had taken his leave shortly after buying another round; and Tom and Malcolm have been conferring, heads together, for the last hour. "Dad? Have you had enough? You're looking really tired," Catherine says quietly, and Harry decides that he has; he nods his head, almost imperceptibly.

"Right. How did you get here?" Harry thinks for a moment, and says, "Malcolm drove us, in my car." She drops a kiss on his forehead as she gets up. "Be back in a jiffy." He watches as she walks off: it still floors him to think that this beautiful, self-assured young woman was once his little girl. When she had arrived in the pub, with Erin in tow, she had hugged him long and wordlessly, and for the first time since_ It_ happened, he had begun to feel that perhaps he might survive even this. Catherine returns with the keys; Harry frowns. "Isn't Malcolm coming?" She shakes her head. "No, he said that now I was home, you had no further need of his services. Does he _always_ talk like that?" Harry grunts in reply, and looks past her to where the two ex-members of Section D have been sitting all night; but no-one is there. He surveys the room, which is swaying slightly: no Malcolm, or Tom. "Dad?" He refocuses blearily on Catherine. "They said to say goodbye. Malcolm gave me this" – she holds out a small, elegantly engraved card – "I didn't know that people even _had_ calling cards in the twenty-first century! He told me to ring if I needed anything…he's really lovely, isn't he?" _How like Malcolm, _Harry tells himself, trying to assuage the odd little sense of loss at Catherine's words,_ to unobtrusively excuse himself from the scene, once reinforcements arrived…and as for Tom, while I appreciate the man's concern, it was difficult to see him again…it's better this way._ Harry manages a half-smile at the note of surprise in his daughter's voice. "Yes, he is." He watches as Catherine takes care of everything, settling the tab, letting the others know that they are about to leave. Erin, Calum and Dimitri come over and wish him good night, while she brings the Defender around.

"Come on Dad, let's go home," she says, giving him a steadying hand as he gets clumsily into the high vehicle; she swings up lightly into the driver's seat, and with a cough, the engine comes to life. "When did you learn how to drive a manual?" he asks, recalling fraught Sunday afternoons trying to teach Catherine how to drive Jane's little automatic Metro. She flicks him the _Oh, please_ look that he knows so well. "In Gaza. I've learnt a lot out there, Dad. I'm not a little girl any more." He looks back at her, confidently piloting them onto the M25. _She's right, but to me, she'll always be my little girl. I think she would have liked Ruth… _Harry leans his head against the B-pillar, closes his eyes, the better to conjure up Ruth's face as she told him about the house with the green front door, and soon he is snoring, utterly worn out from the day's events, while Catherine drives on. She is shocked at the change in her father: he seems to be crumbling in on himself, and he looks so much older that she is worried that he might be ill. _Tomorrow,_ she thinks, _I'll insist that he sees his GP… it's funny, this role reversal thing. I'm not sure that I like it. I'd rather have him, larger than life and twice as dangerous, roaring at me about being reckless, than this…this shadow of himself. Oh, Dad…you must have loved her very much, this Ruth._

oooooo

Tom drops Malcolm at the foot of the Long Walk, on the other side of the river. "Are you sure about this?" he asks as the older man opens the passenger door. "I'll be all right. At the worst, I'll have a good walk. It's been a very…_intense_... couple of days. I could do with a bit of peace and quiet." Tom looks at his old colleague with concern: for Malcolm to say that, things must have been_ bad_. "You'll remember what I told you?" Malcolm nods, and gets out. "It was great to see you again. Take care, Malcolm. Please." Malcolm sketches a little salute in farewell, and sets off down the path, lined on either side with tall horse chestnuts and plane trees, now bare against the soft blackness of the night sky over Windsor Great Park. As he walks, Malcolm takes great lungfuls of the cold, crisp air, and the tension of the last few days lessens slightly, if not the grief he feels over Ruth's loss. He had not known how much stress he has been under, until now, just as he has not acknowledged the weight of the burden he has carried for both Harry and himself, but he feels it now, a dragging weight of sadness and loss and pain. The trees arch protectively overhead, and through their bare branches, he glimpses the stars, burning faintly; he feels a great wave of longing come over him at the sight. _There's nothing more for me to do here…it's time to go home._ Malcolm quickens his steps towards the dark bulk of the Castle, sprawled atop the gently sloping hill.

oooooo

The tall young man looks up at the discreet knock on the parlour door. "Yes?" he calls, and the door opens. "Sorry to disturb, but there's a visitor, Sir." He closes the book he has been reading aloud, and the footman advances and extends a small silver tray towards him, upon which an engraved card reposes. "At_ this_ time of night?" his grandmother asks from her tall chair beside the fireplace, her tone of voice conveying her surprise, "Is everything all right? Is it one of your crew?" The young man scrutinises the card, and shakes his head, the beginnings of a smile playing around his lips. "Hardly. Show him to the King's Dining Room, and say I'll meet him there, would you, Jenkins? Thank you so much." The footman withdraws, and the young man says, "I'm sorry, Granny, but EH White may have to wait. Duty calls, you know." She nods slowly, _Oh, yes, how I know it._ "Very well, then. Until next time," she replies, as he leans in and gives her a peck on the cheek, before turning and striding swiftly out of the room.

Malcolm waits nervously, glad that he is at least properly dressed this time. "Mr Wynn-Jones. What may I do for you?" the tall young man asks, crossing from the private entrance to the dining room with a long, easy step. _Colin used to walk like that_, Malcolm thinks, momentarily disoriented, as the two men shake hands. "Th…thank you, Your Highness, for seeing me at this hour. Forgive my presumption, but I…I was wondering if I might take you up on your very kind offer?" The young man blinks, before recalling his words to the man as he had hastened, white-faced, from the helicopter. _'We should be going back in a couple of days…do let me know if you need a lift.'_ He looks more closely, moved by the exhaustion and grief that is now marked so deeply on the other man's face, the staggering weight of the sorrow that is bowing his shoulders, and he understands that there is only one thing he can do to help.

"You need to go home, Mr Wynn-Jones, and as it happens, so do I. We're due out of Northolt at 0800 tomorrow. You can stay in one of the grace and favour apartments tonight, if you wish, and we'll be on our way first thing." Malcolm can hardly believe his ears. "Me? S..s..stay _here_?" he stammers incredulously; the young man smiles, suddenly looking very like his mother, and replies, "Why not? You look like you're in need of a bit of grace and favour, and we're hardly short of room." Lost for words, Malcolm can only nod, and shake the young man's hand with a sort of amazed gratitude. A short time later, he is in bed, still unable to believe where he is, and as he drifts off, he seems to hear Ruth's voice whispering in the dark, _Curiouser and curiouser…_

_She always was very fond of Lewis Carroll_, he thinks sleepily, and then he knows no more.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Three days later…**_

Elizabeth stares at the little engraved card on her mantelpiece, before turning it over to face the wall. _I won't ring…I won't…I won't. It's nothing to do with anyone else… _She steps out of the front room, breathing in the heavy scent of white lilies. Her brother-in-law had sent these, and as she enters the kitchen, she sees an identical bouquet from her aunt in Exeter. _Why don't florists ever check the address, and see what they've sent before, when it's obvious there's been a death_? she thinks irritably, snipping out the stamens with their treacherous load of orange pollen. Elizabeth washes her hands, looking out the window to the wide green sweep of the park, just across the road. She watches as an unfamiliar yellow Polo turns into the street, driving slowly. S_omeone looking for a house number, _she decides, and then her stomach clenches as the car stops outside her home, and a pretty, fair-haired woman, a good ten years younger than Ruth, comes up the path towards her door. _Will I answer it, or will I just pop through to the back room and wait until whoever she is gets tired of ringing the doorbell and goes away again?_ Elizabeth asks herself, standing stock still in the hallway and listening to the Westminster chimes ring out once, twice, three times, before curiosity gets the better of her, and she moves towards the door.

Catherine has had enough: for the last two days, she has been trying unsuccessfully to contact Ruth's mother, while Harry has grown more and more distressed. He had been shocked to learn that Elizabeth had managed to spirit Ruth's body out of the hospital morgue, and then he had been outraged. Catherine had rejoiced to see him pacing the floor and roaring down the phone at the hapless administrator who had allowed this monumental cock-up to occur: this was the father she remembered and had feared she would never see again. Soon, though, he had begun to fret about what Elizabeth's intentions were, and it had broken Catherine's heart in a whole new way to hear his constant worried musings. "Surely she wouldn't…I mean, Ruth and I…we were _together…_she couldn't mean not to have a funeral at all…surely she wouldn't do that…" It is almost worse than the long silences, the hours he spends alone upstairs, the lost look on his face when she speaks to him.

Personally, she doesn't much care whether Ruth's mother arranges a High Anglican service, or sits _shiva_ for her daughter all week, just as long as her father is there too. Catherine has seen more than enough sudden death to know the importance of saying a final goodbye: in the places she has lived, one could be alive at breakfast, dead at noon and buried by sundown, and yet be surrounded by relatives and friends throughout. She doesn't understand what Elizabeth's problem is; her father, she is the first to admit, is not an easy man to be around, but Ruth had chosen him, for whatever reason. As far as Catherine is concerned, they had begun to build a life together: Ruth's clothes are hanging in her father's wardrobe, her things are scattered through Harry's house, and tucked under a pile of books Catherine knew weren't her father's, she had found a much-creased estate agent's flyer for a pretty little cottage in a village somewhere in Suffolk. Catherine had liked the rather shabby, green front door…and then her father had taken the flyer from her, eyes glistening, and carefully refolded it, before tucking it into his pocket without a word.

Now, she stands before another front door, and quickly presses the doorbell; unsure whether it is working, she pushes it again. Silence, even though Catherine is sure someone is inside: she thought she had glimpsed movement from the corner of her eye as she drove past the house. She presses the button hard a third time for good measure, and hears the chimes ring out; just as the last tinny note fades away, the door opens, and Catherine draws a sharp breath, startled by the older woman's appearance. Harry has shown her pictures of Ruth; what he hadn't told her was that Ruth had been a younger version of her mother, right down to the remarkable aquamarine eyes. Elizabeth, dressed in black from head to toe, looks at her without surprise or interest. "I suppose you work for _him_," she observes, noting Catherine's unconventional clothes, vaguely Middle Eastern in style. "Um, Mrs… _Ms_ Bickley…I'm so sorry for your loss," Catherine begins, and the remarkable eyes turn icy in an instant. "Are you? Why?" she enquires, before continuing, "Did you know her? Did you work with her? Did you watch her bleed to death?" Catherine blinks, thrown by the hostility in the woman's voice. "Well, what do you _want_?" Elizabeth asks, annoyed beyond her patience at this beautiful young woman standing there, alive and well, when her daughter will never appear at her door again.

Catherine makes an effort, for her father. "Harry…he's anxious to know when the funeral will be. It's terribly important to him that he be there, you know." Elizabeth stares at her for a long minute, before coolly saying, "Is it? Well, then, perhaps he should have gone to the first one." Catherine hasn't a clue what that means, but she senses that time is running out. "Ms Bickley, _please_. Losing her…it's killing him. He _needs_ to do this, to say goodbye properly. Don't you even care that they meant the world to each other?" Elizabeth sighs: _who __**is**__ this girl with a romantic streak a mile wide?_ She looks more closely, and frowns. T_here's something oddly familiar about her…something about her eyes,_ Elizabeth thinks, _or perhaps it's the shape of her mouth… _Aloud, she says, "Ruth told me once that that Five always held its memorial services in the dreariest church in London. He can say goodbye there. She also told me about the wall of death in Thames House, and how much she hated it, hated seeing her friends' names on it. I suppose he'll put her name up there too, now, for all the good it'll do."

Catherine looks at her in confusion. "Oh, no, I don't work for him! Sorry, I should have said earlier. I'm Catherine Townsend, Harry's daughter." Elizabeth turns even paler, and a muscle jumps in her cheek as she looks towards the little yellow Polo. "You're Harry's _daughter_?" Too late, Catherine realises her tactical error, and quickly plants her foot in the doorway, preventing Ruth's mother from slamming it shut on her. "Yes, and I'm very worried about him. Look, he won't sit down the front, he won't even talk to you or your family if you'd prefer; he just wants to be there, to see her one last time…the memorial service isn't the same thing as a funeral. Please, I'm begging you." _I am,_ she realises, _I __**am**__ begging. For Dad's sake._ _Who'd have thought? _Elizabeth chuckles, a harsh sound without a trace of amusement, that makes the hairs on the back of Catherine's neck prickle.

"Ruth was very fond of Jane Austen; she loved the irony of her writing. I wonder what Miss Austen would have made of this situation? Here's _Harry's_ daughter, alive and well and begging me to let him attend _my_ daughter's funeral..." Catherine hears the pain behind her words, and waits apprehensively for Elizabeth to finish speaking. "Do you know what direct cremation is?" Elizabeth asks her, and Catherine shakes her head, while a creeping dread takes hold of her. Elizabeth turns away from the door for a moment; when she returns, she hands Catherine a small brochure, printed in muted tones. "This explains it. And now, I'll thank you to take your foot out of my doorway and leave my house." Catherine reads the brochure's title, _Simple Solutions_, and suddenly her sense of dread is no longer creeping, but galloping like one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse… she shifts her body involuntarily in shock, and Elizabeth shuts the door sharply, with a final "Good-_" _the last syllable cut off as the door slams shut. Catherine stands there in disbelief, looking at the door, and then she slowly walks back to the car.

"Well? What did she say? When is it?" her father asks anxiously, and Catherine wonders how she can tell him. "Cat?" She looks at him in the passenger seat, freshly shaved and dressed in his best black suit just in case the funeral should be taking place today, and she can't, she just can't. Something that Elizabeth said comes back to her, and she turns towards him. "Dad, why would she have said that you should have been at the first funeral? I don't understand…" Harry's heart constricts painfully, and he closes his eyes, fighting for composure, before he tells Catherine about Cotterdam, and how Ruth had saved him by choosing a faked death and exile. When he has finished, Catherine doesn't know what to think, or how to feel. She knows her father has done a lot of dark deeds in the name of the greater good, but this is something else entirely; no wonder Elizabeth is so angry. "So, if Five had even gone to the quite frankly disgusting length of substituting a body, why didn't you attend the funeral, too?" She thinks she knows the reason, but she needs to hear him say it. "I couldn't. Even though I knew it wasn't real…it was the idea of it, you understand. I had just watched her go off into the unknown, and she wouldn't let me say something that I had most desperately wanted to, something I felt I had to tell her. I could no more have gone to a staged funeral for her than I could have joined her on that barge. Now, when is it?" Catherine's heart plummets, and she hands him the brochure that Elizabeth gave her. "She wouldn't say, but I think it might have happened already… I'm really sorry, Dad."

Harry stares at her, stricken, then looks down at the brochure. "But there hasn't even been a notice in the papers…" Catherine watches uncomfortably as he struggles for control, his face contorting as he reads. "How could she? How could she even think of doing this?" He makes as if to get out of the car, and Catherine grabs his arm firmly. "What are you doing?" Harry glares at her. "I'm going to get some answers out of her. I thought _Ruth_ was stubborn and obtuse…she obviously gets it from her mother." Catherine is alarmed: the last thing Harry needs to do is to start treating Elizabeth like a recalcitrant suspect. "Dad, wait. I've got an idea…" She rustles around in her handbag until she finds her phone; next, she extracts an elegantly engraved card and punches numbers into the keypad. "What are you doing?" he wants to know, and she holds out the card so he can read it. "Calling Malcolm." _Of course…_

He doesn't hear the phone at first; well, actually he had, if he's being honest, but he feels strangely ambivalent about answering it. He has only been home for three days, and it is nowhere near long enough to begin sorting through the morass of emotions he has lugged back from London. The relief of escaping had quickly been tempered by guilt at leaving Harry in such a state, and then concern for Catherine, left alone to handle her grieving father. He picks up the call on the last ring. "Hello?" Catherine's voice comes faintly; reception out here is not all it could be. _I should really do something about it_, Malcolm notes, and then he thinks about nothing except what he is hearing. "Sorry, she's done what? _What?_ Are you sure? I really don't think that she would have… Oh. I see. I see. Right. Shall I call her, and see what's going on? Yes, leave it with me. Please, don't mention it…" he rings off, staring at the sleek silver phone in his hand as if it has just turned into a venomous snake. He has been afraid of this; all along, he has been afraid of it. He has never regretted anything in his life like fabricating the evidence that helped Harry to convince Elizabeth her daughter had committed suicide five years ago, and now his past deeds have returned with a vengeance. He looks out at the cold, grey expanse of the ocean with a shudder, and brings the phone slowly towards himself again. _Rain's coming in, just over the horizon…_

"Elizabeth Bickley," the disembodied voice, its timbre so like hers, states flatly, and Malcolm finds himself unexpectedly tongue-tied. "Erm…um, Ms Bickley…Elizabeth, it's Malcolm Wynn-Jones…" and he prays she doesn't hang up immediately. "Yes?" she says, her voice now razor-edged, and he chooses his next words with great care. "I'm so sorry to disturb you, but, but I was just wondering if you had made any decisions yet, about Ruth." She laughs, a mirthless sound, and says, "_She_ called you, didn't she? The hide of her, turning up on my doorstep like that. Well, I sent her packing, her and _him_ too, lurking out there in the car." Malcolm closes his eyes, picturing Elizabeth standing in her front room, rigid with anger, watching Catherine and Harry drive off in defeat. "Yes, she did," he admits sheepishly, unwilling to compound her anger or insult her by lying; like Ruth, he is certain that Elizabeth would see straight through it. "Elizabeth, please. Please don't do this. Ruth wouldn't have wanted it; whether you like it or not, they'd been in love for years, and they were planning a life together. Harry has a right to be present at her funeral, don't you think?" And then he holds his breath; there is a long silence before she speaks again. "How do you know it's not over already?" _I don't_, he thinks, _but I'm wagering that the apple didn't fall far from the tree…_ "Because your daughter was one of the kindest, most considerate and caring people I have ever known, and I think I know where she got it from." There is another long pause, during which Malcolm prays that she is not crying silently, and then Elizabeth says very softly, "Damn it. You're not going to give up, are you?"

Malcolm feels the corners of his lips twitch upward ever so slightly, despite the sadness of the situation, for in Elizabeth's reaction, he recognises Ruth's pragmatism and ability to read a situation. "I'm sorry; but I truly do believe it's what Ruth would have wanted." Elizabeth sniffs, "What _Ruth_ would have wanted is to still be alive, and working in Whitehall…I can't forgive him, Malcolm, and I want him to know it." Malcolm groans inwardly; now they're coming to it. "I know, but this...this is _cruel_, Elizabeth." She spits back, "No, I'll tell you what's _cruel. Cruel_ is telling a mother her only child has killed herself. _Cruel_ is letting that mother hold a funeral for that child, and then allowing her to go through years of grief, alone and forgotten. _Cruel_ is making me go through it all _again…" _she stops to draw breath, "Can you even imagine what that's like? I don't know what to do; we did it all last time. Her favourite music. Her best-loved poem. Her friends from university. The local vicar, the local church. A whole montage of photos set to songs, projected on a screen above the coffin…all that, and now _this…_this time it's real, and I don't know what to do. No mother should have to bury her daughter once, much less _twice_…and the country, the Service she died for, they never cared about her the first time, so why should they care now?" Malcolm listens to the sound of stifled weeping until he can bear it no more. "Elizabeth? W...would you consider permitting me to help, with…with…the arrangements? I would very much like to, for her sake." He hears her catch her breath, as the first drops of rain spatter against the small, thick panes of glass.

"Elizabeth?"

_**A/N: The events of the past week involving both MH-17 and Gaza have been so horrendous, that I really wondered about updating this story; it seems such a trivial thing to do, in the wake of such loss and suffering for so many around the world. Writing fics about soldiers, spies and terrorists is one thing; the reality is quite another. That being said, I would like to ask my readers to please take a moment to remember the innocent victims who have lost their lives, and the families who are grieving for them.**_


	9. Chapter 9

**_One week later..._**

Elizabeth steps back, looking at her reflection with detached disinterest. Hat, dress, shoes, and handbag: all present and correct. Her hair is brushed, her lipstick is in place. She cannot believe what she must do today. Impulsively, she picks up the necklace lying on her dressing table, and with fingers that tremble, puts it on. _Now I'm ready to face __**him**__…_

She checks her watch: _it's time._

_oooooo_

He has been up since before dawn; he has pressed his best suit, meticulously ironed a dress shirt, and polished his shoes to a mirror shine, wanting only to do her proud. Downstairs, he paces endlessly, drinking black coffee and staring longingly at the whisky decanter: _surely just the one wouldn't hurt?_ But Catherine had forbidden it. "You don't want to arrive smelling like a distillery, do you?" Besides, Ruth had wanted him to cut back on the drinking. "It'll be the death of you," she had often said, only half-joking. So he paces, and eyes the clock, and tries to ignore the nagging need of a drink; eventually Catherine comes downstairs, running a critical eye over him. "No, that won't do," she says, and reascends to return with a different tie. "Put this on." He stares at it in dismay. "But it's so…_bright_. I can't wear that!" Catherine unknots his plain black tie, slips on the other one. "It was her favourite colour, wasn't it?" He nods, suddenly mute, and she smiles back at him reassuringly.

"You look fine, Dad. Let's go."

_oooooo_

The two of them are going; Callum has offered to oversee the Grid, with the help of a couple of officers drafted in for the day from another section. Erin smooths the heavy black silk of her skirt over and over as Dimitri picks his way through the morning rush-hour traffic of Central London, and glances for the hundredth time at the digital dashboard clock. She checks her makeup in the mirror hidden in the passenger-side sun visor, and slips on a pair of dark, oversized sunglasses, then removes them. She tries to think of Harry, but her mind recoils at the loss and pain that is now his world; she cannot fathom what it would be like to lose the love of her life, unless she forces herself to imagine an existence without her daughter. At the idea, her hand goes to her throat, and there is a catch in her breathing that sounds like a sob. Dimitri never takes his eyes from the road as he enfolds her small, cold hand in his large, warm one. "It'll be all right, you know," he says reassuringly, and she turns her head to look at him, so solid, so real, so very much here with her. She smiles back at him.

_The two of us are going; it'll be all right._

___oooooo_

Callum, watching the progress of Dimitri's dark blue 4WD from the Grid's technical suite, tells himself, _Rather them than me. I hate funerals, and I still can't believe Ruth's gone…I keep thinking I'll see her, every time I walk through the pods, and when I don't, it's like I flashback to that day, with her lying there and blood everywhere and Harry holding her, crying, and everyone standing around, so bloody helpless…anyway, someone's got to stay here, keeping watch over the city, the country, the whole fucking fucked-up planet…Regnum Defende, isn't that what Harry's always going on about? _He gives them green lights right out to the M25, glad that they're going.

He's even gladder that he's not.

_oooooo_

The air rising from the river is damp and chilly; it's not good for his asthma, but still he lingers, watching the swans as they drift downstream, dipping their necks toward each other, fluffing their feathers against the cold. Against the backdrop of early-morning mist that hangs low over the Thames, they look ethereal, like creatures of legend, pure white and untouchable_. As indeed they are,_ Malcolm thinks_, for all swans belong to the Queen._ They are grace and serenity and beauty, and his spirit is in sore need of such balm this morning. He does not know how he is going to survive the sadness of the day; and yet he must not only get through it, but do his best. _For Harry, for Elizabeth, and most of all, for her_. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend she is standing there, watching the elegant birds with him; and then the sun climbs a little higher in the sky, dispersing both the haze of a mid-October morning and the melancholy mists of memory. _It's going to be a fine day…_ Malcolm takes his grandfather's gold fob-watch from his waistcoat pocket and checks the time, before snapping it shut and setting his shoulders with a determination he does not fully feel.

_Oh Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…_

___oooooo_

The tall young man runs a critical eye over his crew; all are present and accounted for, and all are starched and polished to within an inch of their lives in their dress blues, in readiness for the unusual duty of the day. Satisfied at last, he nods, and the men all turn as one to march through the courtyard. He catches sight of the great clock as they go. _Right on time_, he notes, and salutes towards a particular window, high in the Castle, as they set off. There is the faintest flicker of movement – a small wave of the hand, perhaps – in reply, and then he sets his mind wholly on the task ahead.

_Honour, duty, sacrifice; these are precepts so often lost or forgotten in today's world, and yet the flame has not gone out completely,_ she muses as she watches her grandson going out with his men. _There is still hope…_

___oooooo_

One by one, they arrive at the tiny chapel, tucked amongst the ancient oaks now regally arrayed in their autumn livery of russet and gold, the foliage blazing bright against the low, pale grey sky. The little group of mourners has no eyes for the ravishing beauty that surrounds them; all their thoughts are on what lies ahead.

_How can I bear to say goodbye, when we had only just begun a new life together? _

_This can't be happening, not again…not again._

_Poor Dad, how is he going to get through this? I wish Graham had agreed to come…_

_She'll never know how hopelessly I loved her…_

_This is so awful for Harry, but I'm glad we're here for him…_

As the cortege of gleaming black funeral vehicles draws up, silence falls across the gathering, and they stand, heads bowed, as the undertakers transfer the simple coffin that Elizabeth has chosen. Once it is in place, she goes forward, and lifts the lid; she wants there to be no doubt this time. Her daughter lies there, as pale and cold as marble beneath the fine veil that shields her from the living world. Behind Elizabeth, the others file in, and she becomes aware of a gentle presence beside her. "Elizabeth?" Malcolm says quietly, and she turns her head to look at him. "It's really real, isn't it? My little girl, my Ruth, is gone," she whispers, and the tear that tracks its way slowly down his cheek is all the answer she needs. "I'm so sorry," he murmurs, his voice thick with emotion as he sees Harry, standing on the other side of the coffin, gazing down at Ruth as if he is staring into the abyss of his own oblivion. He reaches out to touch her, and as he moves, Elizabeth makes as if to stop him, a heartrending noise of protest rising in her throat. Harry glances up at the sound, and their eyes meet over Ruth's body: dark amber holds icy aquamarine. Malcolm closes his own eyes momentarily, unable to breathe in the tension that fills the air between them; and when he opens them, he witnesses something extraordinary.

Harry is staring at Elizabeth, transfixed; he has turned grey, and his hands on the coffin's edge tremble uncontrollably. "Wh…where did you_ get_ that?" he finally stammers, "she thought she'd lost it years ago…" Elizabeth's hand rises to her throat, touching her daughter's favourite op-shop find, a necklace made up of dozens of antique charms; Roman coins, a tiger's tooth, beads and trinkets from around the world. It was the legacy of a life well lived, and well-travelled; the kind of life that Ruth had once aspired to. "She left it, the last time she stayed at Cheltenham, before she…went away. I found it when I moved out of that house; it must have slipped down behind the bed, and she forgot it." He reaches out towards it, a futile gesture, before his hand drops back to his side. "You look so much like her, wearing it." Elizabeth sees the longing in his eyes, the horror he feels at facing a future without Ruth in it; in his pain she sees her own grief, reflected, mingled with guilt that he is standing there alive at all.

Quite unbidden, a thought occurs to her: _he understands how it is for me to lose her, because he feels the same way… _Slowly, she reaches up to unclasp the heavy necklace, before she fastens it around Ruth's neck, turning back the veil carefully as she does so. Harry had sent a deep purple dress for her daughter, none of the sombre blacks and dark blues she had taken to wearing when she returned from exile, and with the necklace in place, Ruth looks once more almost as she did when she had first arrived on the Grid, bumbling and nervous and utterly brilliant. Harry watches, his eyes glistening, before he steps forward and slips a shiny, gold ring onto the third finger of Ruth's left hand. "I should have done this years ago," he chokes, and bows his head to kiss her once more on her preternaturally cold lips, while the tears fall and the shards of his broken heart slice his soul to shreds. Malcolm averts his eyes, unable to witness such raw grief without weeping himself, and when he looks again, Elizabeth's eyes are fixed steadily on Harry's. "Yes, you should have," she says, and reaches out to touch him lightly on the arm, a mother's gesture of acceptance. "I can see that now." Malcolm's relief at hearing these words is nearly as profound as Harry's; together, the three of them sit down. Catherine joins her father, and the service begins.

_I don't want another C of E carry-on_, Elizabeth had said, and so Malcolm had found a celebrant. The woman had listened sympathetically, agreed to everything, and signed the Official Secrets Act. Ruth's uncle would speak on behalf of the family, and Harry had requested to give the eulogy; now, though, when the time comes, he finds he cannot, and instead begs Malcolm to read it for him, pushing the handwritten notes at him in silent desperation. His heart aching for his friend, and for himself, Malcolm stands up to address the gathering. "H…Harry has asked me to read this on his behalf," he begins shakily, as the scrawl on the paper swims in and out of focus, "But these are words written from a lover to his beloved, and it would be profane for anyone else to speak them; I think that I would rather tell you the story of Ruth, and Harry." And he does, in his dignified way, his slight Welsh lilt growing more pronounced as he goes on; the congregation listens, entranced, as if to a bard's tale, while Harry clutches his daughter's hand and hot tears roll unheeded down his face.

When he has finished speaking, Malcolm clears his throat. "I'm afraid you haven't heard the last of me; before Harry asked me to speak just now, I was only meant to sing. Ruth and I once sang in a scratch recital of Mozart's Requiem; it is one of my most cherished memories, and in honour of her, I would like to perform the _Benedictus_ from that work now." If Malcolm's speaking had enthralled his listeners, his singing undoes them altogether; from his rather plain, shy countenance emerges a tenor voice of rare beauty, rich and yet pure in tone, and so tender in its expression that the only response possible is a visceral one. People sniffle, dab at their eyes and rootle in their handbags and pockets for handkerchiefs as his voice soars, filling the little chapel with Mozart's immortal music. When he stops, there is a moment of stunned silence; and then the celebrant steps forward and leads them in a recital of some verses of Khalil Gibran's, of which Ruth had been particularly fond. She invites people to say a few words about Ruth, and what she had meant to them; memories are shared, and stories are told, and Elizabeth glimpses the secret world that her daughter had lived and loved in, and finally given her life for. _She was part of something so much bigger, and so much more important, than I ever realised…and these strangers she worked with, they're like her family…_

In the end, Harry speaks. He speaks of their love, of their shared hopes for a life together, of the act of selflessness that took her from him, in a voice that breaks on her name. When he has fallen silent, Elizabeth and her brother rise to close the coffin lid as the ethereal strains of _The Lark Ascending_ are played by the chamber music group that Ruth had once been part of, long ago at Oxford; she was a talented violinist and pianist, something Harry had only recently learnt. _There was so much more still to be known, so many secrets I had been delighting in discovering; how can it all be over, after yearning for her for so long?_

Elizabeth's eyes grow round with amazement as six young men in Royal Air Force uniforms step forward from the shadows to shoulder the coffin. They lift it smoothly, and bear it with solemn steps toward the door. Harry joins her as she follows it, with Malcolm and Catherine a few paces behind. When the little procession emerges from the chapel, she blinks in disbelief: instead of the hearse she had expected, there are four perfectly matched black horses, wearing black plumes on their silver-mounted black harness, drawing a low black carriage. The RAF officers set their burden down with delicate precision; as the other mourners join them in the sunlight, their commanding officer snaps to attention and leads them in a salute to Elizabeth, while one of the men produces a bugle and plays the _Last Post, _the haunting notes floating high into the crisp autumnal air.

Elizabeth is deeply moved; she had thought that Ruth had died for a country that hadn't even noticed, much less cared. _Perhaps it's a Service thing,_ she thinks, then, _There's something very familiar about the tall, fair young officer in charge, but I can't quite put my finger on it_... "Malcolm, thank you for everything," she says softly, "but where on earth did they come from?" gesturing towards the RAF crew and the funeral carriage. Blushing, he gives her a crooked half-smile that does nothing to dispel the sadness in his eyes. "You're very welcome, but I'm afraid I can't take all the credit." She frowns in puzzlement. "But then, who…" Malcolm places a finger on his lips. "I'm sworn to secrecy," he replies, and wisely, she decides not to pursue the subject further. _I'm learning,_ she thinks, and takes her place with Harry, slowly following the carriage towards the Long Walk. She is still full of anger at the death of her daughter, still enraged at the manner of it, but she no longer hates him quite as much; it's hard to hate someone who is suffering from Ruth's loss just as much as she is.

_oooooo_

From a little distance away, amongst the tall trees at the edge of the clearing, she watches as the mourners disperse. _It's good to give the carriage-horses some proper work, _she observes, whistling back the dogs, and turning to retrace her steps. He had done well, that ever so charmingly persuasive grandson of hers… she looks at the engraved card in her gloved hand, and recalls again why she had known that particular name. Not this one, of course, but his grandfather had once been very kind to her, in the frightening and confusing time after she had lost her dearly loved father; she had been glad to have an opportunity to repay the family's kindness, even if it had been in a rather unconventional way. She remembers the other one too, remembers his knighting, how stiffly he had knelt. "It's an old injury," he had told her afterwards, when she had enquired; and no more had been said.

Now, she wonders how he will ever recover from this fresh wounding, this inconsolable loss.

_**A/N: There is one more chapter to go…and speaking of going, my sincere thanks must go to everyone who has been kind enough to leave a review. Readers who also review are a writer's catnip! The verses spoken at Ruth's funeral are from Gibran's The Prophet, and The Lark Ascending is an extraordinarily evocative composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Malcolm is thinking of a line from the Prayer of St Francis, before the funeral.**_


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